[quote sausageflowers]@Bagamoyo1 I sold a house last year and I had to turn up in person in the middle of lockdown to my solicitors to prove it was me selling it. I actually suspect this is fully organised crime all around because the person buying it bought it at such a low price and the way it works is once their name is on land registry they are guaranteed to get to keep the property. [/quote]
That's not correct. Ownership is based, to a large degree, upon occupation. In this instance, as the house was unoccupied at the time of the fraud being identified it is likely to be returned to the original owner. Should the house have been occupied, the purchasers would have retained the property, unless they were implicated some way in the fraud. However, in either instance, the Land Registry, as guarantor of title, would indemnify both parties against loss. If the property is returned to the original owner, the purchaser would be reimbursed the purchase price by the Land Registry, whilst if the purchaser kept the property, the original owner would be reimbursed the market price.
(You may note that this does provide an incentive for the Land Registry to adjudicate that the property should be returned to the original owner. Such considerations are not supposed to be taken into account.)
There are, of course, a number of other legal considerations, but that's a broad summary of how ownership would be decided. Note that the Land Registry wouldn't cover the owner's possessions. In terms of discussion of this being a criminal or civil matter, it is wholly and entirely a criminal matter. I would suggest that, in such cases, the purchasers are often complicit, though this would be hard to prove. Solicitors, too, are sometimes complicit, and the SRA would do well to investigate any such cases. You may note that a few solicitors have been struck off in the past in relation to land fraud cases.